A week in Arizona looming. A
very tight schedule. Three different hotel stays preceded by
a speaking engagement on our book IT HAPPENED IN BROOKLYN
before 400 plus. All those wide open spaces and places to go
and see. So much to do. But what was needed was wheels - -
good ones.

Enter Hertz.

With Hertz, the car can come to you. In
this case, an Audi Cabriolet convertible was brought to our
first stop, and the arrangement was we’d drop it off at the
airport on our way home. Hopefully everything would work
out. The best-laid-plans scenario came to mind. We had been
there before.

But not with Hertz. Our presentation on It
Happened in Brooklyn before transplants from the Borough of
Churches to the Valley of the Sun completed, we stepped out
into the parking lot of the Jewish Center and there in the
bright desert sun stood a gleaming and immaculate
midnight-blue Audi. A trained and courteous driver was
waiting for us and patiently and with no small amount of
pride showed off all the bells and whistles on the
streamlined vehicle. He went over the basics, too and even
helped stow our ample luggage so that the top could go down.
After all, who wants to drive a convertible around
Phoenix/Scottsdale in a beautiful late February afternoon
with the top up?

The top stayed down over the next week
while we elicited admiring glances on every road and byway.
Parkers at the hotels out-did themselves to get a chance to
get behind the wheel.

We took the car on long spins, up to
Sonora, out to sites like Taliesin West, the spread Frank
Lloyd Wright shared with his young tyros in the desert, to
check out the many scenic sites and terrific restaurants of
the region. Through it all, the ride was as important as the
destination.

There were Hertzlocations at each hotel we
stayed at. When we got to the final destination, the
Phoenician, we inquired as to whether the car could be
returned there, eliminating the final and often cumbersome
conclusion to the car rental experience – the drop-off at
the airport.

“Just leave the keys in the car,” the
amiable rep said. “We’ll take care of the rest.”

And they did.

Ah, if all travel experience were as
heavenly as renting a car from Hertz.

We plan to do it again and again!

# # #

About the Authors: Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer are a wife and husband
team who successfully bridge the worlds of popular culture and traditional
scholarship. Co-authors of the critically acclaimed interactive oral histories
It Happened in the Catskills, It Happened in Brooklyn, Growing Up Jewish in
America, It Happened on Broadway, It Happened in Manhattan, It Happened in
Miami. They teach what they practice as professors at Dartmouth College.

They are also travel writers who specialize in luxury properties and fine dining
as well as cultural history and Jewish history and heritage in the United
States, Europe, and the Caribbean. More
about these authors.